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Pete Dodd (aka famousmortimer) is running an Indigogo campaign for a new website
- Thread starter ElTorro
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famousmortimer
Banned
They aren't. But I think there is a unique story as to why with each case.
I got a feeling your site name might be worth something to the right people.
On the other hand, backers see what they are getting. Knowing that Pete knows other people running successful websites and doesn't aim high at the beginning, I see a non-zero chance for him to figure out an implementation of his ideas over the course of the next year. Giving him this opportunity is all I want, and if it doesn't work out after the first year, well, there is a vast number of much less interesting things to waste $5, $25 or $100 on, depending on how much money you can/do spend monthly for non-essential things.
toddhunter
Member
There are always a million reasons not to do something. The important thing is that you give it your best, doomed to failure or not. In this case I trust that you will give your all and so I wish you well in what you are attempting.
hardcastlemccormick
Banned
I'm not going to judge anyone else for what they spend money on, but someone who doesn't even have a business plan doesn't even have my interest, much less a stake in my wallet.
Dr.Schlomo
Banned
Ok, this is a great start! The private forum is also a good idea for monetizing. You mentioned you have someone helping with design. If you need help with host/development shoot me a pm with your questions.
SneakyStephan
Banned
don't read the youtube comments
you could have found a cure to cancer and some mouthbreathing 12 year old would still tell you to kill yourself in the commentsIf you want feedback get it on gaf (wide variety of opinions here) where at least the trolls and meanspirited driveby comments are mostly filtered out by the mods.
the point is that they're not the same old 'reviews , news and editorials'
I know of exactly one website where I can find reviews and impressions that aren't bought and paid for in some form (hint, it's not kotaku)
there is an audience for what he's doing and I wish him the best of luck in his efforts
OT: good luck Op, as someone who doesn't pre order games I look forward to having some place to get some reliable information about new releases that doesn't entail sifting through gaf threads for hours on end after the launch hype died down.
At least you're making an effort to make a change rather than cowardly and selfishly playing along with the status quo
Good luck and all, but I don't see this going well. Perhaps this site project would be better left to being a hobby like your blog seems to be now - because now you have other people's money tied up in this I don't think you are going to have a very fun time "trying" this idea....going to be a lot of pressure to deliver worthwhile content. Even though you have honourable goals I think they won't be enough.
People who are sick of mainstream sites like IGN, Kotaku etc. come to places like GAF, and I see very few people people who are here feel a need to travel elsewhere - but this seems to be the audience you are targeting. I can't see a week-or-two-late review sparking enough interest to be worth the time and money. Most people will have made up their mind on the game by that point. Game journalism is certainly kind of broken, but not to the extent that I believe your website will have a huge impact. Some AAA games could be perceived as having inflated scores...but most of them are still high quality. From what I have seen of you you seem to have integrity. But without creating controversy for the sake of it (which I hope and believe you wouldn't do), I'm just picturing a bunch of 7/8's out of 10 instead of the usual 9's 1 week later than everyone else. Once the hype of the people who funded this has died down, I'm not seeing a draw.
Will news really drive traffic? I don't see it. Of course, I don't know any statistics. But if you go on Kotaku, IGN, Destructoid, Gamespot etc. etc. etc....the news articles are going to mostly be the same. Why check somewhere else, which is not going to be able to produce the same number of news articles as other, larger sites? The only way you would be able to keep up with those places is if you spent all day sourcing articles. And that doesn't leave much time for high quality articles that will keep people who visit the site around. Access to exclusive insider information ( I don't know the extent to which you have that) is the only selling point I can see this website having right now.
I sometimes write reviews for games and have had a few blogs that each ran for a few months. I have closed all of those down, and almost always delete the reviews I write before ever posting them because I am very self-conscious. I cannot imagine the pressure of writing with the expectations of hundreds of backers and thousands of dollars under you. If I were you I would have tried to find a nicer job and kept this a hobby. I think your attitude to being an "ideas man" is a bad move to be making so early on. As you are forming this site you should really be thinking about the direction and niche you want to be carving out for yourself before you settle into a routine that doesn't draw enough interest and end up changing course too late. I am sorry if I sound harsh but it's only because this is the kind of idea I could see myself having, minus the croudfunding and popularity. But from an outsiders perspective it seems to fall apart very rapidly.
With all of that said, I am sincere in my well wishes. I don't think it will do much without you taking into deeper thought what you need to do to run a successful website. But regardless, I hope you pull it off because the kind of attitude you put across in your indiegogo pitch is really one that needs to be seen more in games journalism.
People who are sick of mainstream sites like IGN, Kotaku etc. come to places like GAF, and I see very few people people who are here feel a need to travel elsewhere - but this seems to be the audience you are targeting. I can't see a week-or-two-late review sparking enough interest to be worth the time and money. Most people will have made up their mind on the game by that point. Game journalism is certainly kind of broken, but not to the extent that I believe your website will have a huge impact. Some AAA games could be perceived as having inflated scores...but most of them are still high quality. From what I have seen of you you seem to have integrity. But without creating controversy for the sake of it (which I hope and believe you wouldn't do), I'm just picturing a bunch of 7/8's out of 10 instead of the usual 9's 1 week later than everyone else. Once the hype of the people who funded this has died down, I'm not seeing a draw.
Will news really drive traffic? I don't see it. Of course, I don't know any statistics. But if you go on Kotaku, IGN, Destructoid, Gamespot etc. etc. etc....the news articles are going to mostly be the same. Why check somewhere else, which is not going to be able to produce the same number of news articles as other, larger sites? The only way you would be able to keep up with those places is if you spent all day sourcing articles. And that doesn't leave much time for high quality articles that will keep people who visit the site around. Access to exclusive insider information ( I don't know the extent to which you have that) is the only selling point I can see this website having right now.
I sometimes write reviews for games and have had a few blogs that each ran for a few months. I have closed all of those down, and almost always delete the reviews I write before ever posting them because I am very self-conscious. I cannot imagine the pressure of writing with the expectations of hundreds of backers and thousands of dollars under you. If I were you I would have tried to find a nicer job and kept this a hobby. I think your attitude to being an "ideas man" is a bad move to be making so early on. As you are forming this site you should really be thinking about the direction and niche you want to be carving out for yourself before you settle into a routine that doesn't draw enough interest and end up changing course too late. I am sorry if I sound harsh but it's only because this is the kind of idea I could see myself having, minus the croudfunding and popularity. But from an outsiders perspective it seems to fall apart very rapidly.
With all of that said, I am sincere in my well wishes. I don't think it will do much without you taking into deeper thought what you need to do to run a successful website. But regardless, I hope you pull it off because the kind of attitude you put across in your indiegogo pitch is really one that needs to be seen more in games journalism.
The campaign is set up to reward the money he gets pledges no matter what. So far he will be able to do the site for 3 months(ish) under his original ideas.
So everyone here will be able to see at least what he has in store for the site and taste how it will run.
7 pages has led to 10ish more backers.
All in all there will be about 150ish people who pledge cash in the end.
What I would do is collect your thoughts, and get the site up and running with this start up cash.
After the 3 months is over, hit up funding again and see how it turns out.
The main issue with most people is what are they getting in return that others will not by not backing. The forum is a good place to start, but if you can figure out something else it might drive people next go around.
So everyone here will be able to see at least what he has in store for the site and taste how it will run.
7 pages has led to 10ish more backers.
All in all there will be about 150ish people who pledge cash in the end.
What I would do is collect your thoughts, and get the site up and running with this start up cash.
After the 3 months is over, hit up funding again and see how it turns out.
The main issue with most people is what are they getting in return that others will not by not backing. The forum is a good place to start, but if you can figure out something else it might drive people next go around.
MHWilliams
Member
The private forum sounds like a decent idea for monetization. Otherwise, I wish you luck, sir.
I will tell you that daily news isn't a huge driver of traffic, unless you're the one who is breaking it.
famousmortimer
Banned
The $15 tier (and all above, except for the $1000, because why not) gets you the private forum, an email newsletter which will be gaming focused but not entirely - it will be a place to explore various ideas, trends, etc, there will be atleast 4 podcasts per year that are just answering subscriber questions and only distributed to subscribers, and they can share the MP3s (no drm!) if they want, and you will get a fancy icon on the forum. This will be $20 or $25 when the site goes live. Kinda like minecraft, I wanted to offer early access-like stuff for cheaper.
It's lifetime, also.
famousmortimer
Banned
I know. Like I said to Jason, if it drives one hit that's better than no hits. I'm not saying that news will be the reason that people come to the site. I'm saying it will be one of many things that could potentially drive people to the site. And from there, hopefully our slant on being consumer-oriented will keep them coming back.
I don't think for a second im going to compete with kotaku or ign or even PSNstores on news. All i was trying to say is that even if it brings in a meager amount of people, that's more than zero. Hopefully other things will bring in people also.... and, of course, hopefully once they get there hopefully they like it. That's my job - to give people a reason to come back. And I know that the answer to that isn't rewording press releases.
Lactose_Intolerant
Member
You are going to get people coming to your sight because of a leak. Not because of news they can find everywhere else or on gaf. It is a waste of your time and meager resources. Time you could be producing content that will actually make your site different. Then when people read the leak story, they can find your editorials/consumer rights stuff.
famousmortimer
Banned
I will have a staff of atleast 10 people (all part time, but i assume at any point a few will be around). Getting news up isn't going to be an issue nor is it going to take away from our larger goals. If all of the free help bolts... I will not be spending my day copying news. I will break news, if I can, or I will work on other things that I believe are missing on other sites.
I can't have 10 people writing editorials a day. Well, I can, but then everything gets lost in the noise. Different people have different strengths and I will have them doing what their strengths are. If there are people who are strong at news, they will do news... even if it doesn't drive a ton of traffic.
I disagree. I think people will go to the site to see the news with his view points on it. Which happens to be another click since you have to drill past the first FACTS to the Conjecture take on it.
Lactose_Intolerant
Member
What view? It is news.
Per the indiegogo:
Facts----->Conjecture---->Rumors
So let's say that Respawn announces that a day one patch will change the player count from the announced 6v6 to 8v8. The news will be presented as objectively as possible under the Facts section.
In the Conjecture section I would say something like "Six versus Six never felt empty in the beta but eight versus eight will definitely add to the chaos. There were some framerate dips in the Xbox One beta so we will be keeping a close eye on how smoothly things go with the higher player count.
EDIT:
Basically what cable news does now (though that sounds really bad) but they find a way to talk about 4 stories all day. I'm sure there is some colorful commentary he can add as well.
Having started more than a few websites, one of which I ran for 7 years, I can tell you for sure that it's not easy, we hardly slept for that whole time. We got somewhere eventually by putting the commitment in, but all I'll say is that you'll need a lot of time on your hands and don't expect to make much money at all, if ever.
Do you have any professional journalists who are willing to write for your site? I.e people with experience of writing and editing?
I kind of like the idea of speaking out, I'm good at that myself, but I don't expect you'll make many in roads with pr as a non established site whose mission goal is to call them out if they blacklist you. A pr's job is to promote their company in the best light, so if you call them out if they happen to disagree with you, why would others take the risk of adding you to their press list?
Being a member of the press is give and take. These companies are trusting you with sensitive information/embargoes etc, they all respect we have a job to do, but at the same time we must respect their wishes should there be agreements in place.
Also I'm sick of this Games Journalism is broken rubbish. IGN and the others aren't liars, I know many of the writers at these websites who are UK based and they are the most knowledgable and honest people around. Their reviews are honest and so are their views, I don't always agree with them and often question them, but in no way do I think journalism is corrupt. IMO there is nothing to fix. Why would someone who gets paid a terrible wage, who works crazy hours and does this job for passion lie about reviews to appease a publisher? I'm just of the opinion that this doesn't happen, or at least I've never encountered it or anyone who I regard as dishonest. Journalism can get better sure, but IMO we are lucky to be part of an industry where the people who write about the product are so passionate about it.
Sorry if I've gone off couse.
Do you have any professional journalists who are willing to write for your site? I.e people with experience of writing and editing?
I kind of like the idea of speaking out, I'm good at that myself, but I don't expect you'll make many in roads with pr as a non established site whose mission goal is to call them out if they blacklist you. A pr's job is to promote their company in the best light, so if you call them out if they happen to disagree with you, why would others take the risk of adding you to their press list?
Being a member of the press is give and take. These companies are trusting you with sensitive information/embargoes etc, they all respect we have a job to do, but at the same time we must respect their wishes should there be agreements in place.
Also I'm sick of this Games Journalism is broken rubbish. IGN and the others aren't liars, I know many of the writers at these websites who are UK based and they are the most knowledgable and honest people around. Their reviews are honest and so are their views, I don't always agree with them and often question them, but in no way do I think journalism is corrupt. IMO there is nothing to fix. Why would someone who gets paid a terrible wage, who works crazy hours and does this job for passion lie about reviews to appease a publisher? I'm just of the opinion that this doesn't happen, or at least I've never encountered it or anyone who I regard as dishonest. Journalism can get better sure, but IMO we are lucky to be part of an industry where the people who write about the product are so passionate about it.
Sorry if I've gone off couse.
famousmortimer
Banned
That's the hope with news.
Lets take Amy Hennig leaving ND for instance. IGN wrote what I thought was an irresponsible story that mixed facts with fiction and rumor and innuendo. I don't blame IGN for reporting the rumor they heard, but the way they deliver news is that it's all bunched together which gives the impression (especially non-critical thinkers) that it's all news.
On our site news will be broken down into three parts. Facts, Conjecture, Rumors. Because I don't want people confusing any of the three.
The facts would state who Amy Hennig is, what she has done in her career, and that she left Naughty Dog.
Conjecture would then have my (or whoever wrote the piece) opinion on it. What it means for the uncharted franchise. What it means for Amy. All easily identified as opinion.
Rumor would then, if we had the "she was forced out" rumor (she wasn't btw, well, not entirely) we would post that.
Same info as IGN but presented in a much more responsible way. This also assumes you want to hear my or our my writer's conjecture on a given story. Some people will, some people won't, some people will send death threats on twitter. That's cool. For everyone other than the people who want me dead, you can read the facts and then get right out of there.
WarMacheen
Member
Sounds like a solid idea, but I think it will be an uphill battle. Even so, I usually just blow these things off, but I feel that even if it fails, trying is worth the money.
I agree with your statement, I definitely don't believe publishers hand out money to review sites just so they can get better review scores. What does happen are review events such as the last SimCity game where press gets to play the game at a fixed pr location and then they end up playing the game without all the connection problems everyone suffered from at launch. Stuff like that does happen and it's one of the main reasons games like that still tend to score good/ok despite launch problems for everyone else. Not because EA paid them off.
Most of the time, if people complain about a certain Polygon or IGN review and say these sites are corrupt... they really aren't. It's not like IGN as an entity wrote that particular review. It's like people saying GAF is a hivemind. It really is the opinion of a single reviewer. Unless you really believe everyone writing for IGN is corrupt and gets paid for writing good reviews for big games etc.
Have I taken a jab at IGN reviews before? Certainly, but not because they're corrupt. Just because I really didn't agree with their opinion.
Lactose_Intolerant
Member
Simcity didn't have server issues until 1000s of people tried to log on. I don't believe there was a pr event for reviews like EA's other games.
and Titianfall reviews show some of these sites changing how they do thing.
I agree review events are a terrible idea, although, again, you can hardly blame the publisher as it wants to present its game in the best light. I've always tried to avoid these events if I can and it's probably why a lot of the review scores for Titanfall were held back (like you say, you can hardly judge a game properly in a false environment such as that). But these are the cards sites are dealt, if the ign's of this world don't publish the reviews, somewhere else will and at the end of the day they are all businesses which need the hits to exist. IGN are one of the biggest sites for a reason, if they delayed reviews every time because it was an event, they wouldn't be the biggest anymore.
famousmortimer
Banned
I don't think the problem with 'games journalism' is a problem with the journalists. I think it's how the publishers have rigged the game.
The publishers hold the cards though and in a sense control these other sites through their ads. The only fix to avoid corruption conspiracies would be for the bigger sites to advertise movies or music instead and avoid gaming ads completely.
Yoda
Member
The problem lies in how they present themselves to their viewers. The difference lies in promoting the news and reporting the news there is a difference between those two ideas and it is endemic in all types of journalism. A clear cut example are the 24/7 political cable new channels: you have MSNBC promoting it from a liberal perspective and Fox News reporting it from a conservative one. Anyone who actually takes what they hear off these channels as un-altered facts is in reality extremely uninformed. Now look at games journalism. Any large AAA launch gets access to pre-launch material that is otherwise not available to the consumer. Who gets this material is usually done via a very informal basis but it boils down to which sites have helped drive sales and which haven't. The former gets chosen and the materials is never analysed objectively and then comes what is truly the problem of games Journalism... reviews.
Reviews generate the most traffic and have the most effect on sales. If a site reviews a game super poorly they will jeopardize said relation with the company producing the game. Which will effect the overall health of their website in the long-term. Both the journalist and the company have a financial stake tied to the review. This leads to titles like Sim City or Battlefield 4 which both made people question whether EA even employed people for QA because these games clearly didn't go through it... yet they both initially launched to stellar reviews which surly drove sales. Long behold anyone who paid the most they could for the game (new launch week) we're given the middle finger of both games being broken in several different areas.
Companies have to promote their products somehow, but as it stands right now the games journalism business its too close to the people they should be "holding accountable". Sure at the end of the day its just videogames, nothing that can truly screw people over like politics but intellectual dishonesty turns people off, there are sites which don't overtly do shit like "unboxings" and other shenanigans but they are far and few inbetween. If someone wants to try succeeding as the former I encourage them to do so.
Profitability has becomes the ends to a means in a lot of facets in the modern economy, but people seem to forget that it isn't the point. If you can cover your costs, pay your workers and live on the revenue generated while improving upon your site / passion; who the fuck cares about continued and increasing profitability? Getting rich is not everyone's primary goal, even if a lot of people aspire to it.
IGN needs to bring in Ziff Davis increased profits quarter after quarter, period. Kotaku is a bit different with Gawker Media being private, but even Nick Denton started small and has questioned the value / profit proposition of blogs for investors vs readers, which makes the poo-pooing more hilarious.
Big things can start small in the destructive and creative environment of the world wide web, yes, even without a business plan. If you can get by making a respectable living being your own boss and doing what you love, well that's the America Dream. Not over building something you could care less for to build profits and cash in.
Yoda
Member
No, it's really not. From a business standpoint, one hit is exactly the same as no hits. You don't get paid either way. It's important to understand if you want to make a living at this. When it's your hobby reaching one reader might give you real satisfaction. When it's your job you just wasted your time.
I think that type of site is slowly going away, leaving one or two left. while the rest have to go a different way. See GB for their stuff, or Polygon for theirs.
Glass Shark
Banned
Pete, before I go on I want to say I appreciate what you're trying to do. It seems like you have a clear head and great intentions. I like a lot of your vision for the site. However, I do want to challenge one major notion of your project and get your response to it. Take a look:
Polygon's 5/10 review of Castlevania: LoS2 (Konami)
IGN's 2.5/10 review of Fast & Furious Showdown (Activision)
GameSpot's 5/10 review of Yoshi's New Island (Nintendo)
Joystiq's 2/5 review of NBA Live 14 (EA)
Game Informer's 1/10 review of Fighter Within (Ubisoft)
One of your sticking points is that the games press is "playing ball" with publishers and is "afraid of pissing them off". If that's true, what do you say to negative reviews like these of games from some of the industry's biggest publishers? You are obviously very knowledgeable about this industry and know many people in it, so I'd love to hear your insight.
Again, please don't take this as a criticism. I hope your funding and site are successful. I'm just really curious about your response. Oh, and if you need any experienced writers, I'd be happy to contribute.
Polygon's 5/10 review of Castlevania: LoS2 (Konami)
IGN's 2.5/10 review of Fast & Furious Showdown (Activision)
GameSpot's 5/10 review of Yoshi's New Island (Nintendo)
Joystiq's 2/5 review of NBA Live 14 (EA)
Game Informer's 1/10 review of Fighter Within (Ubisoft)
One of your sticking points is that the games press is "playing ball" with publishers and is "afraid of pissing them off". If that's true, what do you say to negative reviews like these of games from some of the industry's biggest publishers? You are obviously very knowledgeable about this industry and know many people in it, so I'd love to hear your insight.
Again, please don't take this as a criticism. I hope your funding and site are successful. I'm just really curious about your response. Oh, and if you need any experienced writers, I'd be happy to contribute.
I disagree with this statement. I owned a website and our review scores appeared on Metacritic. We reviewed practically all new releases, often not in a good light and not once did the publisher ever tell us that they were unhappy with our review. In fact often we'd be contacted by the publisher for further reasons why we disliked the game so that they could feed it back to the developer.
Messofanego
Banned
I follow all of those except for FamilyGamerTV, so thanks cause that's a really cool perspective to put on video
Skylanders Needs More Girl Power
Lactose_Intolerant
Member
There were pr events or issues? I'm not going to watch that past the 1 minute mark.
Review events are indeed a terrible idea and a good example of how publishers have rigged the game somewhat. The site I write for never attends these events and it does affect how quickly we can publish our review. Sometimes, it takes them an extra week (or two) to just send a physical copy. When we have finally played the game and the review is done, the game has already been released for about a week.
The review, then, is less relevant because people are already playing it and aren't actively reading reviews anymore. So in that regard, they try to force you to attend these events. Luckily, our chief editor is strictly against it. We have a good team though and our visibility is still quite strong. There is less competition in my country though, not really that much "big" gaming sites.
I can also confirm this. Publishers never threaten you if you publish reviews that aren't positive.
I gave CoD: Ghosts a 66/100, Dead Island: Riptide got a 55/100 and something like Medal of Honor: Warfighter a 50. That doesn't stop EA, Activision and Deep Silver from sending us copies and inviting us to their events. It really doesn't.
The Real ManaByte
Banned
I don't think a single one of those games had the type of PR push, even from their big publishers, that something like a GTAV or Titanfall does. Some games are sent to die. Publishers know they're going to get crap reviews, and they know they'll be in the bargain bin in a month.
How do the budgets look on those games? What did they need to sell to be profitable? Do we know there wasn't angry phone calls made or shots across the bow for writing those reviews?
Just looking at the titles, they don't appear as terribly important games to publishers (as much as any one game can be) compared to huge budget, AAA tent poles which tend to get the worse "mittens" approach.
I'm reminded of stories that when you throw a fight, you have to still sell it as real less it lose credibility. Obviously something so apparent is NOT going on in the gaming media, but the idea is still the same. They don't get as much blow back from the less important titles, while publishers will go to bat against them on their tent pole behemoths.
Thus you see Fighter Within get smacked down, while GTA major launch issues (4 and 5) are glossed over while 10/10 are handed out. Then its miraculously missing from GOTY nominations only a few months later.
If you listen to the podcasts, watch the streams, or read his posts, Pete plays, enjoys, and recommends games that tend to be overlooked, even by gaffers like myself, for that fact alone I am grateful.
famousmortimer
Banned
I dont think review scores are the entirety of "playing ball." Especially singular ones. Some games suck and everyone pans them. Other times a big site pans a game that others don't. I'm not saying that doesn't happen. But if a big site legitimately didn't like every ubisoft game for a year would ubisoft continue to send them games? That's one of the questions i would like to get to the bottom of.
And if i'm ubisoft, do I send them games? I certainly understand the argument for not doing it, from a financial standpoint. But I don't care about Ubisoft's financials, I care about transparency to the customer.
Yoda
Member
It was pre-launch servers only avail to journos which of course didn't have the server issues. Given the servers ended up only existing for DRM (the regional functions were broken for 1/2 months) and that didn't make it into any review I remember reading was just an example to help my point about reviews being tied to future pre-release content.
Yoda
Member
They don't have to try to blackball said site, but they can simply choose not to consider them for previews/interviews etc... which is perfectly reasonable to not give all sites such as that would simply take too much effort/resources than most game houses have, but given said fact (unless I'm completely wrong here) if you have a limited about of outlets you have time to use to promote your material, why wouldn't you go with one that will promote it in a much more positive light than a competitor?
Glass Shark
Banned
Fair enough! I wish you the best, and my offer still stands for contributing to the site if you need the help.
MHWilliams
Member
A big site? IGN size? Yes, Ubisoft continues to send them games. But realistically, if Ubisoft puts out that many poorly-reviewed games (and poorly-sold?) in a year, shareholders will be breathing down management's necks. Someone is losing their job.
That's more likely.
But just because one site is negative about one game doesn't mean they won't be positive about another. It's all only one persons opinion after all. There is no way they'd blackball a big site ever, not unless they were really going out thier way to upset the publisher. (It has happened, I know Eurogamer didn't get code from one publisher)
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